This invention relates to artificial flowers and to an improved method for their manufacture.
It is often desirable for artificial flowers to look very much like the real ones, and it is also desirable that they be relatively inexpensive, long lasting, able to stay fully assembled, and of pleasing lifelike appearance.
Many methods have been used for making artificial flowers, but one that has recently come into use involves first, molding an artificial stem, which may be provided with little projections to simulate thorns and little studs sticking out at the edge; second, sprigs or petioles are separately molded, having a little coupling member that is joinable to the projections from the stem; third, artificial leaves precut from suitable material are adhered to the separate petioles. Only after this are the petioles with the leaves on them mounted on the molded stem as a fourth step. Fifth, a calyx is separately molded from plastic and must be assembled onto the stem by hand. Sixth, precut flower petals are assembled on a suitable jig and then that assembly is attached to a stem portion that extends through and beyond the calyx. Thus, this previous method has required the molding of at least four separate plastic parts in order to provide the stem and calyx assembly, that is, a main stem having a plurality of petioles and a calyx. After the artificial leaves have been put on the petioles, these four parts are assembled into one part and then the flower subassembly is added. All this takes time and requires various processes of handwork to assemble each stem and flower assembly and therefore costs money.
Moreover, with this method of assembly, the petioles can rather easily come off the stem, especially if faultily or carelessly installed; even if correctly installed a very slight pulling action on them will take them off the stem. Also, the calyx being loose, handling of the calyx in a direction tending to move it off the stem causes the flower assembly to fall off and become disassembled. During what may be a long journey from the manufacturer to the distributors and from them to retailers, leaves and blooms have often become loose and come apart from the assemblies.